Chair:Adam Maria GadomskiENEA (Italian National Research
Agency for the Energy and the Environment)Co-chairs::Paolo
Petta, OFAI, Austrian
Research Inst. for Artificial Intelligence, Andrzej StraszakSRI-PAS
(Systems Research Institute - Polish Academy of Sciences)

SCEF-2003 is devoted to the
memory of Professor
Jan Zytkowwho was well known in the
international scientific community, who belonged to the pioneers of Scientific
Discovery and who developed the first Machine Discovery systems like BACON
and FAHRENHEIT. His optymism, scientific
and organizational contributions were essential for two previous
International AIA Round-Table meetings[Jan
in Roma],http://www.cs.uncc.edu/~ras/Zytkowl

The first international workshop on the foundations
of socio-cognitive engineering SCEF-2003 is being organised as the third
edition of the AIA (Abstract Intelligent Agent) Round-Tables initiative. Our intention is to further the tradition
and main topics of the International AIA Round-Tables that took place among
the very first events on agent-based technology in 1993 and 1994
(http://erg4146.casaccia.enea.it/AIA-RTs.htm). The main objective of the previous AIA
Round-Tables has been to discuss the possibility of an integration of software
engineering and cognitive sciences perspectives in the area of natural
and artificial intelligent systems. After a decade of intensive world-wide
theoretical and applicative efforts, we are convinced that the concept
of intelligence cannot be separated from the global systemic and social
approaches. Therefore, this new AIA initiative is focused on emerging interdisciplinary
intelligence-based Socio-Cognitive Engineering (SCE).

From the top-down perspective, socio-cognitive
engineering can be seen as a branch of general system engineering, it integrates
paradigms of: physics, systemics, engineering, cognitive and social sciences.
It is founded on an interaction of three basic modeling perspectives: cognitive
psychology, sociology and computer science.

Application of integrated paradigms should improve
the modeling and management of complex and heterogeneous systems, such
as large critical infrastructures (electricity and telecommunication networks),
e-learning, e-health and other networked services, as well as human-society
interrelations, which all require synergy between technological possibilities,
human organisations, and individuals welfare needs.

The fulcrum of SCE research is an Abstract Intelligent
Agent (AiA) with its interactions with its environment, and with the environment's
cognitive ontology. AIA is a hypothetical model that captures the essence
of all systems which we accept as "intelligent" in the common sense.Therefore, AIA is a property of:

In all these cases, AIAs are unique possible
decision-makers and executors of decisional processes.The key problems of SCE refer to the congruence
between computational definitions of such basic concepts as Knowledge Engineering,
Knowledge Management, Decision-Making, Risk-Management, as well as, to
the various forms of socio-cognitive interactions (cooperation, negotiation,
e-learning).

SCOPE

This workshop is intended to bring together leading
scientists, interdisciplinary researchers, theorists, experienced practitioners,
and policy makers from all science and engineering fields relating to the
communicating cognitive natural and artificial intelligent agents/entities. The workshop follows the recent ideas and perspective
emerged during the first successful special session, "Socio-Cognitive Modelling
for Business Intelligence" of the BIS 2002 International Conference
(http://bis.kie.ae.poznan.pl/5th_bis/special_sessions/socio.htm).Summarising, the workshop should favour systemic
integration of research and engineering perspectives across application
domains, research disciplines and available technologies.The debates of the 3rd AIA Round-Table should
lead to a conclusive document; therefore, the materials of the SCE-2003
shall be elaborated, interpreted, and published under redaction of voluntary
members of the Scientific Board.

RELEVANT TOPICS

Given the distinguished
attendees, the whole Workshop shall consist mainly of "keynote" talks on
a wide range of socio-cognitive intelligence engineering. The Workshop
will include topics related to: modeling socio-cognitive systems, individual
and distributed decision-making frameworks, managerial decision-support
systems, knowledge management, domain-independent and -dependent intelligencies
("x-intelligence": organisational intelligence, business intelligence,
expert intelligence, ...), socio-cognitive grids, future intelligent
ambient assessments, and promising SCE technologies.The list of
keywords of the workshop is long and it also includes:distributed
cognition, socially shared cognition in organisation, computational ethics,
as well as situated cognition, and human- centred design from human and
Artificial Intelligence perspectives. In any
case, the important property of every submission has to be the clear
reference to a general vision of socio-cognitive
systems ( identification, design, management), and to a possible computational
realisation of the presented ideas/hypothesis/solutions. For better
identification of your contribution topic see http://erg4146.casaccia.enea.it/toga-tech.html
, as well as, the absintelagent e-group archive: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/absintelagent/
.

PARTICIPATION

The participation is limited to about 30 leading scientists, interdisciplinary
researchers, experienced practitioners and research policy makers. Active
participation is strongly recommended.

e-Submissions Three forms of e-submissions will be accepted:

1. regular presentation - a full written paper
2. regular presentation - an extended abstract (the form is attached)
and a presentation file (PowerPoint, PDF, ...) which has to be available
at the workshop.
3. specification of the subject of the oral contribution to the debate
session, a summary.

Participation requests and all submitted materials will be evaluated by
the SCEF-2003 Scientific Board.
The material submitted for presentation at the SCEF Workshop must be
original conceptual property of the author(s). A
short biografical note (10-15 lines) of the authors has to be added.All materials accepted for presentation will appear in the Preprints
of the meeting which will be distributed to all registered participants.
A selection of the workshop material shall be published after the event.

Participations fee It includes only the cost of the Social Dinner. The cost of lunches
is not included.